GenCon Observations from an "Outsider"

[GB Steve]

I did four demos at the Forge booth: 1001 Nights, Perfect, Mortal Coil and Shock. I had already done my shopping (21 different games from Forge, WDBC and Lulu) so these demos did not affect my buying.

I'm quite happy to give detailed constuctive criticism on how effective I thought each was but I'm not sure the extent to which the designers want this aired.

On the whole I think everyone did a good job of explaining the setting of the game, the point of each game may have been less clear in some cases and the explanation of mechanics rather rushed in most.

A general point with Forge games is that the mechanics are unusual, often involve large numbers of dice and counters. It's not easy to grasp the full implications of the mechanics on a first run through and so it's probably important to keep things as simple as possible. Some demonstrators have an awareness of this and explain it well whereas as others do it without giving a clear explanation of why they are doing so. This can lead to confusion.

For example, if you are going to bypass some mechanic, then have a character sheet that either doesn't figure it or have some explanation that isn't just hand-waving as to why it's not going to be used.

Things were rushed and rather hectic but I didn't find with any of the demos that this was distracting once I was playing. Players seemed to understand these issues and made allowances and were keen to try things out.

[MikeH]

Not sure of which of the two GenCon posts to put this in because I've been on both sides of the booth and probably will bounce around the booth in the future. But here goes nothing. :)  Are there any pics of the Indie booths / areas to peruse?  If you were a GenCon veteran, what words would you use to describe this years GenCon vs. others?  Since my livelihood kept me away this year I've been asking people who did go about their general impression and it has been a 'subdued but good' feeling.  They didn't sense any ground breaking new genre or game overwhelming the convention. This may have been good for indies as people might have had more money to spend on innovative smaller press games that they might have shelled on the PHB 27 or a suitcase full of booster packs for a CCG.

Mike Halse